Lamp on the Lamp Stand/Light of the World

Intro/Illustration:

I think it is most appropriate to begin a series on Parables; that is, that I start with a short story.

A boy once asked his grandfather, “Why am I afraid of the dark? And why do so many people I know seem to be afraid of the dark, too?” the old man looked at his grandson and said, “That’s a very good question. But you know, not only are lots of people afraid of the dark, many people are afraid of the light.” “Afraid of the light?” The boy said, confused. “Why would that be?” “To understand that, I have to start at the beginning - in fact, at the very beginning.” His grandfather replied.

Once upon a time, there was a great King, who was the King of Light. He lived in the light. He made the light, and His light was so perfect and so pure that He was called “the King without a Shadow.” This great King of Light made a group of people, and He made them so that they could shine brightly, just as He did. He called them His little lightlings. He set the lightlings in a beautiful garden that He prepared for them—a garden that was full of bright sunshine. The sun bathed the garden every day and helped the flowers, plants, and fruit grow in great abundance. The bright light of the sun helped keep everyone warm in the garden. The lightlings loved it when the King came to visit them at the end of the day.

But one day, something terrible happened. The lightlings decided to do what they wanted to do instead of what their King commanded them to do. So, they disobeyed the King and sinned against Him. The very moment they sinned, their lights became dim, and they were filled with shame and great embarrassment.

They ran as fast as they could to get away from the King. They didn’t want the King of Light to see them. They ran out of the garden and into the woods and hid themselves in the darkest place they could find. From then on, they were afraid of the light, because they knew that where the light was, the King would be, and the King would see them in their shame.

After the lightlings left, the King began to remove His light from the garden. It soon became cold and covered with weeds and thorns. The lightings moved further and further into the woods until they lived in a place that was almost completely covered in darkness. It was so dark they had to grope around as if they were blind, feeling their way through the forest. Often, they would trip and fall, scuffing their knees and bruising themselves.

It was awful living in the darkness all the time, where the only light they ever saw was in barely lit shadows that danced in the forest. In fact, they couldn’t tell the difference anymore between night and day.

Then, one night, or perhaps it was day, far off in the distance, they saw a blinding light shining through the trees. They could see the light coming from miles and miles away. They were frightened by it. They thought the light meant that the King was coming to find them to punish them for their sins. So, most of the lightlings began to stumble quickly away from the light.

But some of the lightling children were so amazed by the light and curious about it that they decided to see from where it was coming. They set off and traveled for miles and miles. It took them a long time, but they saw the light shining brighter and brighter as they moved.

Finally, they came to a clearing in the forest. In the middle of the clearing, they saw a father lightling, a mother lightling, and a baby who was shining like the sun. The blazing light seemed to be coming right out of the baby Himself. The lightlings who saw it were shocked and surprised. They asked the father lightling, “Who is this baby? And where did He come from?” The father lightling answered, “He is not my son. He is the Son of the King of Light. The King has given Him to us as a special gift. He has been born for us. When He grows up, He will be called the Light of the World. There will be no darkness strong enough to hide His light, no darkness deep enough to send His light away.” When they heard this, the lightling children knelt down at the baby’s feet and began to worship Him in fear and reverence.

When they stood up again, their own faces were shining. But the light that was shining in their faces was not coming from inside them; it was a reflection of the light coming out of the baby. The lightlings were now surrounded with the light of the child they had visited.

They rushed back to their homes, their friends, and their families as fast as their feet could carry them. When they got home, they were still shining. The other lightlings were frightened at the sight of them. They asked, “What happened to you?” So, the lightling children told their story. “We saw a baby who was shining with light. He is the Son of the King of Light. The King has given us a child. He has given us His own Son to be the Light of the World.”

The lightlings noticed that there was already more light in the forest. Now, they could begin to see where they were going. They could walk without falling. They could run and play without bumping into trees or rocks and getting bruised.

Some still hid from the light, but others realized they didn’t need to be afraid anymore. They saw that living in the light was much better than the darkness they were used to.

The Grandfather looked at the boy and said, “You see, you were afraid of the dark because we were made to live in the light. But someday, all of us who love this Son will live with Him forever in heaven. When we go to the dwelling place of the Son, who is now the Light of the World, there will be no darkness at all. Not only that, there will be no moon. There won’t be any stars or even a sun. There’ll be no night lights, no lamps, no lanterns, not even any candles.”

“How can it be light there if there’s no sun or lamps or candles?” said the boy, “How can that be?”

His grandfather replied, “In the place where the King’s Son now lives, the light that shines forever still comes from Him. He is the light in heaven. All who come into His presence will never be in darkness again.”

Now, that is actually a children’s story by R.C. Sproul. I’ll admit, he’s no C.S. Lewis, although he may have aspired to be, his story is not a novel or probably even capable of being franchised into a series. Nor will it likely inspire a generation or two into a world of fiction, albeit subversively translating the Gospel to an unreached people.

But it wasn’t meant to either. You see, a parable is its own genre.

Transition:

That’s how I want to segue into our topic that we’re going to be discussing today as we begin this year’s sermon series, one that will take us into September, covering the teachings of Jesus contained in the Parables he used. Parables are his sayings that may be short stories that illustrate a truth by invoking a comparison. He uses them to draw comparisons to familiar situations, persons, or events to convey a truth. An illustration. Teachers of all contexts have them; they are those examples you lean on when trying to make a point or relate them in a way, as we’ll see today and throughout our series, Jesus did multiple times in multiple contexts using contemporary examples. The reason for our focus on them is that there is something central about them in His teaching to rely on a relative few so heavily, using them over and over, or at least standing out so memorably to each of our Gospel writers that they would all include a depiction of the same event or example. So, the first step is to free ourselves from our attributions to them.

Appeal:

The author of Hebrews insists that “the word of God is living and active.” Though the Canon is closed, please don’t hear me saying differently, but God is still revealing himself. There are 3 types of revelation. Special; which is the type of revelation where something is revealed to an individual or group. We read about this in our Bibles, and for the most part, again, the Canon’s closed; we don’t really see this anymore aside from people’s claims, usually pertaining to a specific end time, particularly a date… and are either unprovable or never seem to come to pass, therefore, let me just say, though I am not claiming to be a cessationist, just put me in the category of skeptical. Then there’s Divinerevelation; this type of revelation is kind of autobiographical in nature. It is God revealing himself in ways that are beyond our natural reason. Through the working of something, by definition, miraculous, and we know divine intervention through Scripture. As well as truths revealed by Jesus, written down for us by the Apostles. God’s inspiration to men to write down his revelations, preserving us today our Scriptures, is also Divine revelation. But finally, we have General revelation, and this is revelation that everyone can experience; they are the acts of conscience, acts of nature observed by applying sciences, which are nothing more than names we have attributed to lenses through which something may be viewed or a specific critique applied… which include and are not limited to the criticisms that we each bring to the table, our differences, our similarities; for instance feminism and liberationism. They are each our understandings, derived from our context and predispositions. Through our likenesses and our differences, all created in the image of our creator, I may add, we are constantly reconciling and receiving progressive revelations. It’s why Jesus said, “If [he commands his disciples to keep] quiet, the stones will cry out.” Nature proclaims its maker! The more we study, the more we learn about reason.

Application:

Steeped in historical orthopraxy, that is the correct and accepted truth in practice within the Christian tradition, is a portrayal of wisdom as an active member of the Divine economy rather than simply an attribute. There is a plethora of passages within the Hebrew Bible, specifically in the wisdom literature, that is the Psalms, the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job, that claim as much. The Gospel of John even cites the presence of the Logos in the creation narrative, merely the Greek word for memra, which, in Hebrew, is not different from wisdom. This is to say that saying that Christ is wisdom personified is a true statement.

What I am saying, in applying all this to our Scriptures, that there is no intrinsic formulation of the Trinity or doctrine of the Spirit within the Bible, but we can come to know these things when applying reason. By doing that, the Church has adapted confessions based on the truths contained in our Scriptures. This is all General revelation.

So, when we proclaim that “the word of God is alive and active,” we ask ourselves, what is God convicting me of? What truth is Scripture proclaiming in the situation I find myself? Because we do believe it is capable of doing so, right?

Example:

So, one thing to remember as we begin our series here is the genre. Parables, in the modern sense, are kind of related to Jesus; we tend to understand them as such, calling everything else an analogy or allegory or something else entirely, but this is done out of reverence, and it is a strictly Christian tradition. Because Jesus didn’t invent them, nor did the culture from which he came, that is, Judaism, stop using them once his teaching on Earth ceased. They’re metaphorical and symbolic speeches used to teach lessons or make points. They invoke hyperbole, meaning exaggeration. This is particularly important because we are dealing with two levels of meaning, both literal and figurative. There is truth to be lost if you restrict His teachings to one understanding. Historically, parables are also used in argumentation to clarify or prove. We see this in the Old Testament’s use of parable; one example in Second Samuel chapter 12, Nathan Rebukes David by employing a rhetorical device. You’ll remember when David was in the midst of his escapades with Bathsheba:

1 …[Nathan] said, “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. 2 The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, 3 but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.

4 “Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.”

5 Burning with anger against the man David said to Nathan, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die! 6 He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.”

7 Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man!”

Transition:

So, I say all this as a preface. Throughout this series, use new eyes, taking a fresh look at the parables used throughout the Gospels in multiple contexts in different circumstances to convey varying levels of truth simultaneously. It’s not that I wish you to forget anything you know or hold dear. I’m not here telling you the Bible isn’t literal, but that there is also value in understanding things figuratively. When you allow Disney characters with green eyes to have depth, to represent more than simply a villain. And maybe they are just that, but some of them, like Maleficent, even have backstories. All I’m asking is, can you see yourself as both brother AND prodigal child, both Mary AND Martha, rather than simply one or the other. I’m saying that you could be forsaking some of the message. Not only that, but Rapunzel, Kate Middleton, Channing Tatum, Paul Rudd, and myself all share this trait that only 2% of the world has! I really just wanted to include, somehow, myself in a list with two of those people, but I’ll let which ones be a bit of a mystery.

Scripture:

Today, we’re going to look at the first parable we see, at least chronologically, and though it goes by different names, that’s fine and all, really, it’s the example that’s used over and over in the Gospels, and the truth alluded to, with its use that is important. First recorded in The Sermon on the Mount, the first of two parables contained in that sermon is the “Lamp on the Lamp Stand,” or, in other places, Jesus, referring to himself as, “The Light of the World,” which may come as no surprise following the short story about the “lightlings.” But it conveyed something, did it not? That in itself is powerful because it touches on something that is spoken about in no more than 11 verses separated into 6 different places throughout the Gospel.

In Matthew, chapter 5, it’s recorded as: 14 “You are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lampstand, and it gives light for all who are in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

Mark, chapter 4 says, starting in verse 21, “Is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket or under a bed? Isn’t it to be put on a lampstand? 22 For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed, and nothing concealed that will not be brought to light.”

Its first appearance in Luke, chapter 8, is very similar, if not word for word, from Mark’s portrayal, but in Chapter 11, Jesus says, beginning in verse 33, “No one lights a lamp and puts it in the cellar or under a basket, but on a lampstand, so that those who come in may see its light. 34 Your eye is the lamp of the body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is also full of light. But when it is bad, your body is also full of darkness. 35 Take care, then, that the light in you is not darkness. 36 If, therefore, your whole body is full of light, with no part of it in darkness, it will be entirely illuminated, as when a lamp shines its light on you.”

John 8, verse 12, records Jesus proclaiming to the Pharisees, “I am the light of the world. Anyone who follows me will never walk in the darkness but will have the light of life.”

He does so here in discussing the legitimacy of his testimony, saying in verse 16, “My judgment is true, because it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me. 17 Even in your law, it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is true.” This he said, of course, right before saying that “[they] know neither [Him] nor [His] Father.”

Of course, there is also the intro to John, not the word of Jesus; nevertheless, regarding the illustration received by the disciple and interpreted for us, so it fits into two categories of revelation being both his perspective, being general, as well as Divine:

4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

14 The Word became flesh,

Again, this translated from Greek, which used the word Logos, which is used in place of the Hebrew word, Memra, in which there are dual connotations, both word but also wisdom.

And made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Interpretation:

So, what can we gather from the different ways Jesus used this teaching? In Matthew, the epigraph, the heading given by the translators, not what’s contained in the passages, titles the parable as “Believers are salt and light,” meaning (you are (like) these things) contained in the 3 verses, there are 2 parts, first, that this is how you ought to be, second, that this is how (if performed correctly) we serve the world).

Now, in its context, the passage immediately before and after it is also framed to evoke a sense of what happens if you don’t do it well (v13,19)

Jesus’ use of this analogy is to be understood in three ways. First, it’s descriptive of our life, indicating our purpose. It then covers its misuse or a life of sin; finally, it serves as an exhortation related to his purpose: encouragement.

Explanation:

So, it’s really not that complicated or hard to understand, so why was Jesus doing this?

Remember, Jesus was talking to cultural Jews. Their understanding of the covenant, at this time, is cultural, a deal God had with His chosen people. It was corporate and transactional; this for that. Their love had grown cold, and they performed the rites to atone for sins, basically so they could do them in the first place, to the point where there was no repentance and their offerings were detestable. The association of being known as “God’s chosen people” is basically becoming an indictment of God. It’s tarnishing His name. They are the lightlings from which no light came.

The Gospel Jesus proclaims, His good news is that this isn’t how it’s going to work anymore. No more Temple, no more Israel, no more transactions. He wants transformation. He doesn’t even simply want repentance, but for us to bear fruit in keeping with our repentance. This has everything to do with that. This isn’t saying that works is the way, because that’s what the sacrifices are about, right; works? Instead, you should do these things out of love and conviction because, ultimately, it’s the Spirit dwelling in you, an overflow of the heart.

Purpose:

The parables are also part of the signs that Jesus is who he claimed that he is. It was given in prophesy that you would know he is who he claims to be through certain things.

Palms 78:2 says, “I will declare wise sayings; I will speak mysteries from the past.”

Matthew 13, verses 14 & 15 interpret Isaiah 6:9–10, saying, “Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled in them, which says: You will listen and listen, but never understand; you will look and look, but never perceive. For this people’s heart has grown callous; their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes; otherwise they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts.”

Matthew also includes the words Jesus told his disciples about his parables in chapter 13, verse 35, “so that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled: I will open my mouth in parables; I will declare things kept secret from the foundation of the world.”

Parables make up approximately 35 percent of Jesus’ recorded sayings.

Application:

So, what’s the whole point? While elsewhere, Jesus says, “Don’t sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men… they have their reward in full.” How does this seem to teach the opposite?

He is saying that our reputation has value. He’s saying do it and be seen; essentially, do it even if there isn’t a reward. Do it because it is your testimony, which is My testimony, He’s saying. It’s about the love and reconciliation that is truly the work of His church on Earth. Jesus is the Light of The World. This parable is saying we are the lamps through which His light shines. By our actions, people will know that we are His disciples.

Close/connection:

God showed His glory once, merely a reflection in the face of Moses. The Israelites’ mediator had found favor, and the LORD would go with them. Yet, this glory needed to be veiled, not because it would kill them, but because it was frightening to the lightlings. But even Moses prophesied that there was a new, a better glory to come. Just as Moses had, God’s people would one day see the face of God.

“[And], since we have such a hope, we are very bold,” 2 Corinthians 3:12-13 says. 13 We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from seeing the end of what was passing away.

One other face shined, we see in Scripture. It was Stephen’s, the first martyr in Acts. It happened after he was taken, before he was stoned, recorded in Acts 6. It says his face looked like that of an angel. He talked about Moses, and then he preached about Christ. As they killed him, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,” and he prayed. “Lord, do not hold this sin against them,” Acts chapter 7, verses 59 & 60.

Stephen died a condemned man in the eyes of the world, but he was free, the freest of anyone there (2 Cor 3:17). He was free because he had seen glory in Christ through the Spirit, who brought him to faith and kept him, even in the hour of his death. And what did he do with that freedom?

He freely forgave, as he had been freely forgiven. And he went home to the Lord. His face shining, pointing those who lived in darkness to the source of eternal light.